“Evan,” I said, “how shall we take the prince hence?”

“The litter they brought him on stands behind the hut yonder,” he answered; “for this man tells me so.  Also he says that we are not half a mile from our men, and that we can see one from just above here.”

So I sent him to bring them, telling him how the horses were gone, so that we had no need to go back into the valley.  To tell the truth, I was as much relieved in my mind that we need not do so as it was plain that he was.  Then when he was gone I went back to Owen, and he asked me if we had seen Morfed.  I did not tell him more than that we had done so, but that he was not here, one of his two men having guided us, for the tale we must tell him by and by might be better untold as yet.

“It does not matter,” he said.  “I cannot understand the man.  At one time I think that he was at the bottom of all the trouble, and at another that he rescued me from the men who fell on the house.  I have seen little of him here until yesterday and today.  There is a man whom he calls ‘the Bard,’ who has tended me well enough with the old dame, and another whom he names ‘the Ovate,’ whom I have seen now and then—­a younger man.  I have set eyes on none but these four since the men of the burning left me to them in the hills.”

We asked him how all that went, and he told us what he could remember.  He had waked from some sort of a swoon while he was being carried, in the midst of many men, and again had come to himself when his litter had been set down.  At that time there was seemingly a quarrel between Morfed and his two followers and these men, and it ended by the many departing and leaving him to the priest.  That was, as I knew, when the hillmen would not come into the lost valley.

“They set my sword beside me,” he said.  “Presently in the dark I saw the gleam of a pool, and I made shift to throw it into the water, so that no outlaw or Morgan’s man should boast that he wore it.  Ina gave it me.  One of the men saw me throw it, and was for staying, but the other said he had heard the splash and that it was gone.  Morfed was not near at the time, having gone on.  I heard him singing somewhere beyond the water.”

“I have found it, father,” I said.  “It was on the edge of the pool, in long grass, and it helped us somewhat, for we knew you were near.  Now say if it is well to move you yet.  We can bide here with the men if not.”

He laughed a little.

“I think so, but that is a question for the leech.  Ask the dame.  Maybe she will answer if you speak her fair.”

Howel went to do that, saying that maybe she would listen to a Briton, for most of her wrath was concerning my Saxon arms.  So presently I heard her shrill voice growing calmer as Howel coaxed her, and then there was a sound as if she climbed from her perch, and Howel came back to us.

“We may take you, she says.  Hither come the men in all haste also, and we may get away from this place at once.  These hills are uncanny on Midsummer Eve, and I am glad that we have long daylight before us.”